David Davies: The View From HereRandom thoughtsMars attacks- January 22, 2004 The Martians have struck again as NASA have announced they've lost contact with the Spirit rover. Let's hope it's just a temporary communication glitch as according to the press release "similar events occurred several times during the Mars Pathfinder mission". If this is a major fault and the end of the Spirit mission then it's a poignant end because the last published image received from Spirit was a look back at the empty lander, an image entitled 'Empty nest'. Let's hope this Spirit has yet.http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/newsroom/pressreleases/20040121a.html Sometimes size doesn't matter- January 20, 2004 Few can be unimpressed by the quality of pictures coming back from the NASA Spirit Mars rover. But did you know Spirit only has a 1 megapixel digital camera The CCD is just 1,000x1,000 pixels. When you compare this to the 6 megapixel cameras readily available in high street camera shops, just how does Spirit get such good pics The answer is in the lens. In any digital camera the lens is one of the major determinants of picture quality. Most consumer digital cameras have relatively cheap lenses..http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/pancam_techwed_040114.html Don't forget Europe got to Mars, too- January 20, 2004 Europe shows that it's not just the USA that can wow us with stunning images (and serious science) as the European Space Agency's Mars Express satellite beams back its first full colour close-up of the surface of the red planet. The picture is of Valles Marineris, the Grand Canyon of Mars, a region of the planet thought to have been carved out by flowing water. You can keep track of the latest images from Mars Express by visiting the ESA's image gallery. So right now we have both NASA and ESA...http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/express_update_040119.html We choose to go to Mars- January 19, 2004 Above is the first ever picture of the surface of Mars taken by the NASA Viking 1 lander on July 20, 1976. I don't mind telling you that I'm really excited about all the space news we've been having lately, in particular of course the exciting NASA Spirit Rover exploration of Mars. I was 12 years old when Viking 1 landed on Mars in 1976. It was the most incredible thing to see the first images taken on the surface of another planet being beaming back into our homes. I still have a copy of...http://david.davies.name/weblog/categories/theviewfromhere/2004/01/19.html#a529 Applescript Image Events application- January 18, 2004 Well Apple sneaked this one in when we weren't looking. The latest version of Mac OS X (Panther or 10.3 to you) has built-in ability to manipulate images using Applescript. You can flip, rotate, pad, crop, scale and convert images all using simple Applescript commands. Now here's the fun part, both Userland Frontier and Radio can speak native Applescript. Anything you can do with Applescript you can do with Frontier or Radio. So by way of a test my assetManager tool can now create thumbnails...http://www.apple.com/applescript/imageevents/index.html Primetime Gia- January 7, 2004 Congratulations to Gia who's made it onto prime-time TV. The new Channel 4 series Demolition Day started last Sunday night. My son Matthew loves it. Catch the next episode next Sunday, Channel 4 at 6:30pm.http://giagia.blogspot.com/ picsmobog.com- January 2, 2004 This site is so funny, anonymous picture posts with anonymous comments. Catch it now before it implodes! I think it might have started out as a serious moblogging experiment but not any more, it's more of a free for all!http://www.mobog.com/ |